The Third-Date Rule
by EnoughToTemptMe
Summary: A panic beyond the walls of the camp leads Bellamy and Clarke into an ambush. (Of sorts.) BellarkeFicWeek 2015 Prompt: Day 03 First Date AU. Part 3 of a series.


It's early summer, and Bellamy doesn't think he's ever been so warm. The grounders have warned them to enjoy it while it lasts––within a month the temperature will skyrocket, and that warmth will be more a curse than a blessing.

Sure, those first couple of days on the ground were pretty okay, weather-wise, but in between trying not to starve and trying to not get _killed––_well, none of them exactly had a lot of time to bask.

Not that he's basking now. No, obviously, he's _very busy _surveying the construction of a new smokehouse. Their original one can't keep up with the demand and the _Trikru _have offered to show them their methods on the new building.

"Hey Bellamy!" shouts an unwelcome voice. "Are you just going to stand around all day, or help us?"

"Fuck off, Murphy," Bellamy replies cheerfully. "You were sitting on your ass all last week."

He hadn't been, not exactly. The idiot had gotten gored in the leg by a boar on the last hunting trip, and he'd been healing on strict orders from Clarke and Harper not to strain the wound. But part of his and Murphy's relationship, if he calls it one, is to not let anything go. According to Clarke, it's charming and sometimes homicidal––at least that's what she said after one of Bellamy and Murphy's occasional fistfights.

"You're not even doing anything," scoffs Murphy. "If you're just going to stand there mooning around, go find Clarke."

Bellamy does not _moon around_, but he had already been planning on leaving the builders to it (come on, Sima and Hana from the Woods Clan are there to make sure it doesn't get screwed up _too_ badly), so after waiting a few minutes just to spite Murphy, he leaves.

And it doesn't mean he's _predictable _that the first thing he does is find Clarke. It's nearly lunchtime. He's hungry. She's hungry. It's just logical to expect to find her near the cook house, waiting with Raven for lunch to be served.

When he joins them, he touches Clarke's shoulder and drops a kiss on her mouth when she turns. She smiles as he pulls back.

"Hey, Clarke," he says. "Raven," he adds. Raven nods at him with a funny look on her face.

"What?" he asks.

"Is that, like, your new rule now or something?" she asks him. He looks at Clarke and she shrugs. "The kissing thing," Raven clarifies.

"Uh," Bellamy says. "Wait. Rule?"

Clarke's looking between him and Raven with a furrowed brow––she doesn't seem to have any better an idea what the mechanic is talking about.

Raven sighs. "You. Clarke. Kissing before you even say hello. Sometimes you don't even bother to say hello afterward. Or anything, actually."

Clarke pinks up a little. (Bellamy decides he likes it.)

"Huh," he replies. "Sure, it's the new rule."

"Do I get a say in this?" Clarke asks dryly; when he starts to shake his head, grinning, she whacks him in the shoulder and Raven makes gagging noises.

"You two are so gross," she sighs. "Get away from me."

"But I'm hungry!" Clarke protests. "And it's Bellamy's fault, anyway!"

Raven eyes him. "You're probably right," she acknowledges and ignores his indignant "Hey!"

Right then, shouts reach his ears. They all turn and see Jasper running toward him, Monty on his heels.

"Clarke," Jasper gasps when he skids to a stop in front of them. "Bellamy––"

"It's Harper and Miller," Monty blurts out, "by the lake––"

Clarke and Bellamy are already sprinting to the gate, which is thankfully still open from Jasper and Monty's frantic run to find them. Bellamy's focused on getting to the two as soon as possible, and Clarke is listing off things that could have possibly happened to them, so close to camp. But they're not so focused that they don't both stop when the gate slams shut the second they're through though, nor do they miss Harper's voice.

"It's okay!"

Bellamy whips around, notices Clarke doing the same.

"_What _is going _on_?" Clarke yells at the crowd of teenagers standing on the other side of the fence, inside the camp. (_Shit_, Bellamy thinks when he sees the furious look on Clarke's face. He feels like Clarke would kill him if he ever, _ever _admits how hot she is when she's angry.)

"Harper?" Bellamy asks. "You're in the camp?"

"Me too," Miller calls, sheepishly stepping out from behind Jasper and Monty, who are watching Bellamy and Clarke with alarming expressions of glee.

"Explain," Clarke commands. "Now."

"Um," Harper begins, "well, we just wanted you two to have some time to yourselves. With each other, I mean."

Bellamy raises an eyebrow. "And you couldn't just, I don't know, sit further away from us during dinner?"

Now Monroe pipes up. "No," she says decisively, "we've tried that and it doesn't work."

"You're both too focused on all of us," Monty explains.

He and Clarke exchange a baffled glance.

"So we set it up so you guys _have _to relax. Together." Harper grins at them.

"You're all crazy," Bellamy says flatly.

"Open the gate and let us in," Clarke demands.

"No," someone peeps, but Bellamy can't see who.

"Guess who's on latrine duty unless someone lets us in _right now_?" Bellamy asks. "Everyone. _Everyone _is on latrine duty. Forever."

Then the fence buzzes to life. Wick and Raven have rigged it up like Camp Jaha's, but it's only to be turned on in emergencies.

"Who electrified the fence?" he asks sternly. Clarke's mouth is open in disbelief, so he taps her chin.

"That would be me," comes Raven's voice.

"You?"

"Raven," Clarke pleads. "This is ridiculous."

"Oh, I know," Raven replies. "But it's also hilarious. So just accept it, and go find the food that these crazy-ass delinquents left for you by the lake. Don't bother coming back until dinner."

Bellamy absolutely refuses to let a smile touch his lips as the kids return to their duties, more than a few of them glancing nervously back at him and Clarke. He hears her sigh next to him.

"What idiots," she says eventually.

Bellamy shrugs. "At least if they're messing with us they're not screwing around when they should be working on other things."

"Bellamy." Clarke's voice is exasperated. "Messing with us _is _screwing around."

"I don't know," he says, and points into camp, "They all look pretty busy." It's true; camp is now buzzing with a nervous energy, the delinquents working faster and more determinedly than any of the Arkers looking on in puzzlement.

Just then, Clarke's stomach grumbles, and his is quick to respond.

"Let's just go find the damn food," Bellamy suggests, and Clarke sighs.

* * *

He is not expecting what they find at the lake. By Clarke's snort, he guesses she's as taken by surprise as he is.

Just within the treeline, with a private view of the shore, one of the blankets they'd recovered on their last bunker expedition is carefully laid out. A basket, a handwoven one that they'd been given by the _Trikru, _is set in the middle, and it's overflowing with early peaches and boar skewers and water canteens. A late-blooming yellow tulip is held in place between a couple pieces of the fruit, bobbing jauntily in the wind. There are also a couple of pillows (_pillows_? Bellamy wonders) and a jug of moonshine.

He catches Clarke looking at the jug in puzzlement, then up at the sun.

"It's the middle of the day," she says. "What…?"

Bellamy shrugs helplessly.

"I have no clue," he says. "But I'm starving."

They plop down unceremoniously onto the carefully prepared picnic blanket and divvy up the goods. Bellamy pauses, then hands the flower to Clarke.

She rolls her eyes, but takes it. Bellamy sees her tilt her head in thought.

"What?" he says.

"Do you think this is a date?" Clarke asks suddenly. He must look a little shocked because she scoffs at him and continues. "The kids, Bellamy. Do you think the kids set this up as a date for us?"

He shrugs. "Flowers, alcohol, picnic-by-force. Seems like you're right." Bellamy takes a closer look at the scene the delinquents set, then starts to laugh.

"What?" Clarke asks. Her forehead is all scrunched up and she's looking at him expectantly. "_What_?"

He points to the pillows, the moonshine, still laughing. "Looks like they don't believe in that old rule from all the movies," he wheezes. "Considering it's only technically the first date."

"Movies…?" Clarke trails off and he can tell the moment she gets it. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me. The third-date rule?"

Bellamy nods with mock solemnity. "No sex until then, princess, sorry––I guess you'll just have to wait in agony for my––"

The breath is knocked out of him in one big whoosh when Clarke knocks him flat on his back.

There's a strange look in her eye that makes him swallow when he sees it. "They set this up," Clarke says. "Told us not to come back for hours, right?"

"Right," Bellamy agrees hesitantly, then chokes a little bit when she straddles him. "Clarke, what––"

"And Camp Jaha only uses the far side of the lake, so we won't be bothered by anyone," Clarke continues. "No one needing stitches, no one needing a fight mediated. Just us." She looks at him thoughtfully, then leans down to press a long, lingering kiss to his mouth.

"Yeah…" he mumbles when she pulls away. His brain feels a little fuzzy, and he blames Clarke entirely.

She leans down to whisper in his ear. "That third-date thing is really just a suggestion, right? What do you think, Bellamy?"

"I've never been a big fan of rules," he manages to get out, and then they're too busy breaking one to talk anymore.


End file.
